


Frothy Charms Amp Ships: Happy Christmas from SH

by this-caring-lark (firstimecaller)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anagrams, Cas-lock, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Eventual Johnlock, Exchangelock Holiday Exchange 2014, Holiday Fic Exchange, Holidays, M/M, Post-His Last Vow, References to Oral Sex, References to Past Jolto, all the Christmas cliches, exchangelock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-04 09:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3062657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstimecaller/pseuds/this-caring-lark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John once loved Christmas, but after a decade of ruined Decembers, he’s prepared to be quite done with the holiday and all of its attendant traditions. Sherlock demonstrates heretofore unseen levels of empathy and conspires with Mycroft and the other holiday sentimentalists in his family – his parents – to give John a long-overdue traditional Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cas-lock](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cas-lock).



> Written for Cas-lock in the 2014 Holiday Exchangelock. The prompt: “Fluffy Christmas…something where John and Sherlock have to spend Christmas at Sherlock’s [family home]….Anything holiday related.” The present action of the story begins at a time that is post-HLV, post-Mary, post-Moriarty, and pre-Johnlock. There is eventual Johnlock consistent with the rating, which I was asked to keep to Teen and Up. There are a few references to oral sex between John and past lovers, but they’re fleeting and hopefully still considered PG-13. 
> 
> Hope you like it, Cas-lock! 
> 
> The second and final chapter should be up later today (December 30).
> 
> Also: I do not personally subscribe to the view that John actually forgives Mary for her A.G.R.A deception, but it fit this story better for his reconciliation to have been, if not enthusiastic, at least somewhat genuine and well-intentioned.

When John Watson was a child, Christmas had been a mixed bag. When he was very young, there was Father Christmas and a tree and stockings and midnight services. When he was a bit older, there was Harry acting out, his parents arguing, and dry goose in front of the telly while the Queen droned out her address. He had recovered some of his love for the holiday when in Uni – orphan Christmases with the few mates who stayed over during their hols, too much wassail and not enough food. Drunken snogging under fairy lights had been its own winter wonderland, and no regrets for the missing family rows.

Christmas in the Army had been a mixed bag as well. For starters, there was no avoiding the fact that no military base was ever going to be England, though the troops did try. Afghani weather in December wasn’t as far off the mark as you might think, but the quality of the air was different. Square stockings were all well and good – lovely really, at the time – but it was all just limp gestures at normalcy when what you really wanted was the smell of evergreen sap and the nip of almost-snow. And yet, once he had that again, there were new forms of misery: His first Christmas back in London had almost involved him eating the business end of his service revolver, and Sherlock had managed to bollocks up four out of the remaining five so spectacularly that he could hardly remember whether two years ago, while still engaged to Mary, he had been able to unclench long enough to enjoy a bit of it. 

Last Christmas Sherlock killed a man, and really that was probably the high water mark for their holidays together. John had muddled through a reconciliation with Mary, Wiggins had drugged the punch, Mycroft had played Father Christmas with a reprieve from certain Serbian death, and by the time the mystery of the Moriarty virus was solved, “Mary” was in the wind, having left behind her suite of fake pregnancy bellies wrapped – literally _adorned_ – in a big festive bow and a card that read simply, “Go get ‘im tiger”. _Whatever the hell that means,_ John had seethed when he found the bundle and the note. Bit disingenuous that – he’d registered her innuendo, just as she had intended. But he was well enraged that she had grafted their inside joke – that Sherlock was his true better half, always had been – onto what was, by any standards, an outrageous compound betrayal.

In that one stroke he had lost wife, child, and a sizeable portion of his self-confidence. He knew Mary was A.G.R.A., had struggled mightily to come to terms with it on multiple levels, not least of all because his commitment to the life he’d believed was gestating within her had tipped the situation beyond a simple domestic dispute or even a complex matter of deceit. Yes, the reconciliation in the Holmes’ lounge had not been wholly genuine, but it was well-intentioned on both a personal level (a part of him had hoped that he would fall in love with Mary again once they were parents – a foolish speculation, he saw now), and a professional one (Sherlock had told him to do it, which was usually all it took to cause him to do anything). To know that he had once again been duped by a person he had believed he cared for....  Whatever else this meant, it meant his instincts were in need of serious recalibration. And that whatever hope he’d had that Christmas _qua_ Christmas would be rehabilitated was once again beached on the rocks.

In the weeks that followed, he had drifted through an anesthetised haze of pub nights with strangers in foreign neighbourhoods and solo bottles of whisky at home. His affection for Mary already had been on the fast side of a downward slope, so the anger was easy to access, but so was the shame of the dupe. He dismantled the little homebound detritus of their impending parenthood with both relish and wretchedness. He missed days at the clinic, learning only from a phone call from the managing GP that Mary had told them she was leaving him and moving back to her family in – where had she said? Liar’s Village, Liarfordshire County? – which had conveniently bought him some time and saved him explanations that only wild horses could have dragged from him anyway. 

He moved back to 221B almost without asking. A couple of months after Mary’s abrupt departure, he had been on a stakeout with Sherlock that went late. When the suspect failed to materialise, they’d taken a cab back to Baker Street. Sherlock’s only question had been, “Do you want sheets for your bed, or a blanket for the sofa?”

“Sheets,” John had said, and that had been that. His belongings moved in bit-by-bit over the next month, the lease on the erstwhile marital flat was let go, and life settled into its once-familiar rhythm. All to the good, but when the first tendrils of Christmas cheer began curling around shops and adverts and the radio, John began to experience the familiar symptoms of dread. What would it be this time? A reappearance by The Woman, an extortionary command from Mycroft dispatching Sherlock to some far flung hell hole, the debut of some new Big Bad to replace the slain beasts of Moriarity and Magnussen? He was almost relieved when, sometime in the third week of December, he arrived home to find Mycroft and Sherlock glaring at one another in wordless détente.

“Mycroft.”

“Doctor Watson.”

“To what do we owe this… _this_?”

“Ask my dear brother, I’m sure his answer will amuse both of us.”

“Sherlock?”

“Mycroft is playing a poor joke.”

“I assure you I am not.”

“He has extended an invitation, on behalf of Mother and Father, to holiday _chez eux_ at the end of the month. Why he thinks that we would accept such an invitation, in light of the attendant memories, is a puzzle I have not yet sorted.”

Mycroft rolled his eyes. “Sherlock, all of your natural predators are currently interred or exhibiting sensible prey behaviour by hiding in the shadows. Mummy thought that we could overwrite last year’s debacle. Wiggins and his junior chemistry set are not invited.”

John shrugged. He had no energy for Mycroftian machinations, and less than that for fraternal in-fighting, but the idea of spending Christmas in the bucolic countryside instead of noisy, noisome London had real appeal, unfortunate associations notwithstanding. It would be different without Mary (or Wiggins) skulking about. On the other hand, this was an invitation from Mycroft, which meant –

“What’s the catch, Mycroft?”

“None, John, I assure you.”

Sherlock snorted.

“We’ll get back to you soon, Mycroft. Please thank your parents for the kind invitation.”

Mycroft was almost as skilled at exits as he was at entrances. John watched the elder Holmes brother leave, then turned and sunk into the vacated chair.

“Well? Is it a trap of some sort? Retribution for Appledore?”

“I assume there must be something along those lines. I’m sure the invitation is sincere as far as Mummy goes, but whether it originated from a filial worm in her ear, I can’t say for certain.”

“To be honest, Sherlock, I would just as soon be outside of London for Christmas. I’m willing to take the risk that we’ll be beset by ninjas, and I’m able to tune out the fraternal sparring, so unless you object, I would be pleased to accept.”

“It’s fine, John. I’ll have sussed out his angle before we leave. Perhaps we shall make a game of it.”

“Sure, whatever you like. Just let me know if our lives are in danger so that I can pack appropriately. We’ll head down Tuesday morning?”

“Yes. Mycroft will send a car, which we will ignore in favour of the train.”

“Perfect.”

*                *                *

_Well played. –SH_

_So glad you approve. I’ll send a car Tuesday at 9:00. –MH_

_Perfect. –SH_

*                *                *

“Come along, John! It won’t be half as amusing if the driver has given us up before he can see us hail the cab.”

“For chrissakes Sherlock, I’m not going to break my neck running down these stairs just to _spite_ your brother.”

They walked out of 221 as a black Jaguar was pulling up smoothly just outside. As if not seeing it, literally looking through it, Sherlock raised an imperious arm to hail a passing cab. Which of course stopped immediately. Gesturing to the bags before him, he slid inside the backseat as John and the driver settled the luggage in the car. Their destination named, Sherlock and John sat back and caught a momentary glimpse of confused chauffeur through the tinted windows of Mycroft’s emissary. Both laughed.

“Excellent, part one went off without a hitch.”

“I’m not sure this was a good opening salvo. Won’t he be more annoyed than usual, and isn’t that unfair to your parents? I may be able to tune you two out, but they shouldn’t have to, no more than usual at any rate.”

“Nonsense. If I didn’t do at least one objectionable thing before arrival, he’d be in knots with anticipation. I’ve let him off easily, really.”

John mused on the stark contrasts between the dysfunction that marked the Holmes brothers’ relationship – passive-aggressive one-ups-man-ship, cerebral power play, grudging but never acknowledged respect – and that of the Watson siblings. Harry had never met a fight she didn’t believe she could win, or a disagreement that wasn’t worth fighting about. It had made for a loud childhood, even without the surround sound of parental discord. Was the world in her head as loud as the one that spilled from her mouth? The drinking made sense sometimes, when he considered all of her extremes. They had exchanged terse text messages a month or two after Mary left. Harry had put her foot in it again, sending a many-exclamation-pointed query about the baby’s due date, to which John had replied with few words and little grace. She had called him immediately, and he hadn’t answered. And that was where they left it. That was almost six months ago. He thought of her frequently, wondered how she was getting on, told himself he would text or call her that evening, or Christmas morning. Perhaps he would.

“She’s fine, you know.”

“Sorry?”

“Harry. You know that Mycroft keeps tabs on the primary, secondary, and tertiary characters in our _dramatis personae_ , and he would tell you – or at least tell me – if something was off.”

John didn’t bother asking how Sherlock knew the tenor of his thoughts. He no longer felt the jab of invaded privacy when Sherlock read his mind, and simply skipped past it to the substance of the thing. Harry was fine. That was good. “That’s good, that’s…thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

*                *                *

The train journey was uneventful, though the carriages were densely packed with travelling family members of all ages and moods. In between naps and middle-distance stares into the passing suburbs, John pulled faces with a youngster carrying a stuffed otter and tried to ignore the screeches of less placid children. Sherlock remained absorbed in his mobile throughout, his face bearing a familiar look of concentration interrupted by equally familiar flashes of annoyance.

When they arrived at the small village station, the sky was already beginning to show signs of imminent precipitation, but the slate grey of the snow clouds was many shades lighter than the glower of Mycroft’s expression as he leaned, unimpressed but intense, on the driver’s side of the Holmes family car. He deadpanned, “Oh good, you decided to join us after all. Not quite cricket, giving my driver the slip two days before Christmas.”

“You’re paying him twice his wages for work he now does not have to perform. I’d say that’s far more in the holiday spirit than what you had on offer.”

“Hmph. You can play porter yourselves. The boot is unlatched.”  This of course meant that John played porter for both of them.

*                *                *

_“SHERLOCK!!!!”_

_Right on schedule_ , Sherlock thought, as he put away his trousers and dress shirts in his old wardrobe. The dimensions were on the diminutive side but the clothes he had packed for the week hung free in the available space. He tilted his head eastward, toward John’s room, joined by his with an en suite in what the Americans sometimes called a “Brady bathroom”. _No clue what that meant. Famous American Bradys…did James Brady have a penchant for communal water closets?_ _That is utter nonsense, Sherlock. Focus._ John’s reaction to the switch could make or break the remainder of his plans for this week.

He sat down on the end of the bed just as the man himself stood in the doorframe of Sherlock’s childhood bedroom, glowering and holding in his hands three items: A navy and red jumper best described as “festive”, pyjamas festooned with Father Christmases and reindeer in varying positions of animation, and a dressing gown covered in penguins that were themselves holding candy canes and wearing… _what were they? Oh yes_ …ribbon bows. “What is the meaning of this, Sherlock? Where are my things? What are you playing at?”

“I thought you might be holding back on your more…festive holiday tendencies, so I…encouraged them.”

“‘Encouraged’, you say. How is stealing my belongings and replacing them with these twee remnants ‘encouraging’?”

“If you don’t like them, I can provide others that are more staid, but I thought these were in the spirit of the thing.”

“Since when have you given a toss about the spirit of _anything_ , much less Christmas?” John had bitten out the words, but Sherlock took the tone in stride as if it were a pleasant how’d-you do.

“Since I realized how much I’d taken for granted, how much this holiday once meant to you, and how poorly it has gone for you, for so long.”

John was clearly not prepared for an answer this honest or giving, and his face reflected his surprise. “How much _what_? Are you taking the piss, altogether and entirely? This is not making sense. Dinner this evening with your family was lovely, but I’m tired, I want to go to bed, and I’m not keen to slip into something better worn by an eight-year-old. Tell me what this is about before I completely lose patience.”

“No, John, I meant it. Before your years with me – The Woman and The Fall – you had Afghani winters, and afterwards, there was Mary’s deception and Appledore. It’s gone badly for you, and I remember that jumper (here he pointed to the festive woolen in John’s hands) at our holiday party in 221B in the moments before The Woman reasserted herself, and how happy you seemed in the gleam from the fairy lights, and I deduced – tell me I was wrong, John, tell me if I’ve gotten it all wrong – that Christmas meant something to you at one time, but intervening circumstances muddied that meaning so much that only a dramatic reconciliation could right the slights of the past ten years.”

John couldn’t tell him otherwise, it was clear from his face. He had that same look of amazement that he bore in the wake of florid crime scene pronouncements and petty domestic deductions – _how did you do that?_ , and _what could be more marvellous?_

“So you’re my Father Christmas this year? Or my Ghost of Christmas, what? Present? Future?”

“I’m hoping…both.”

John couldn’t stop himself from blushing, but he probably didn’t notice how crimson his cheeks had gone, much like the aforementioned man of jolliness. “Alright then. Is this the extent of it? Or should I be expecting elves or angelic choirs or what?”

Sherlock had expected some flavour of guff, so his expression did not sour. He merely looked up at John’s mocking face and said, quite steadily, quite seriously, “No, John. No creatures of fantasy. But the sartorial change isn’t the last surprise. I’m quite hoping that this will be your first truly merry Christmas in many years. Good night.”

*                *                *

The next day, Christmas Eve, dawned chill but crisp. John rose and showered, then followed the smell of coffee and rashers down to the country kitchen where Mummy Holmes was setting out a full English. All of it was appreciated, but the true surprise was Sherlock, already dressed and apparently _helping_ in the kitchen, though it took John several tries to wrap his mind around the thought.

“Ah John, good morning! I hope you’re not a tea and toast man when it comes to breakie. We do things a bit more traditional outside of town. Will double bacon do in place of sausages?”

“Very much so, Mrs. Holmes. I’m a bacon man from way back.”

“Excellent, how gracious. What a lovely jumper, John. I do love a Christmas jumper in season.”

“Thank you, ma’am. It’s an old favourite.” He cast a side eye at Sherlock, who was (predictably) smirking, but both mens’ eyes were twinkling with cheer. “Is Mr. Holmes joining us?”

“ – yes I am, and thank you for asking,” came a voice from the sitting room, followed a beat later by Mr. Holmes in a holly-sprigged bowtie and red trousers.

“And this is our party, I believe,” said Sherlock. “We’re well-shut of Mycroft until at least tea.  Toast, John?” 

The breakfast was tremendous, and by half nine John was quite ready for another go at bed. He moved toward the stair but turned in reaction to a noise from Sherlock, who was (wonders would never cease!) clearing the table and rolling up his sleeves as if to help with the washing up.

“D’you mind napping a bit later, John? I wanted to show you a few additions to the _mise-en-scene_. If you’ll wait in the sitting room, I’ll be there in a tick. Dad has the fire going, it should be very comfortable.”

“Sure, okay. Nudge me if I’m already asleep when you finish up.”

John walked through the passageway into the cosy sitting room, willing himself to block out the images of a pregnant Mary ( _“pregnant”_ , he corrected himself) that immediately sprang to mind as he beheld the familiar mantle and seating arrangement. There was something different about the tableau this time, and he smiled in spite of himself as he spotted it. There on the hearth, lying next to well-worn stockings embellished with the names, “Mummy”, “Father”, “Mycroft”, and “Sherlock”, was a newly-minted one encursived with his own name. They were all lying flat now, awaiting a midnight visitor.

The revelation that Sherlock (or his parents, if it had been them) had included him in even this minor childhood tradition brought a lump to John’s throat. It took him a moment to blink back a few incipient tears, and he looked around the room with renewed interest for other alterations. He didn’t have to look far. The Holmes always put up a Christmas tree, but John did not need to have memorised their portfolio of ornaments to realise that several were new to the tree this year.

“Ah, good. You’ve found them.” The voice was Sherlock’s, low and a bit more uncertain than normal. “Have you guessed them all?”

“Is that a…” John was pointing to one bauble in particular, a miniature hat.

“A deerstalker? Yes, I couldn’t believe they made them so small. But I suppose our antics have increased the demand amongst teddy bears and the like.”

“Oh my word, is that a real mobile?”

“Hardly, but the pink case is real. Difficult to find a perfect match to Ms. Wilson’s accessories, but I think the effect is achieved.”

“‘Tis.” John reached out and fingered a modestly sized candy cane, a real one, that Sherlock had kitted out with a rubber stopper and a faux wooden handle.  His smile was wistful, but he shuddered slightly as he recognized an intricately folded black lotus. The cloud of discomfort passed immediately, and he smiled broadly once more at the miniature Queen’s guardsman in his bear fur hat. He reached up and gently touched the tiny laptop, a fair replica of his own blogging machine, and grinned widely when he noticed a tiny microscope hanging near a full-sized test tube.

“Do you like it?”

“I do. I’m…impressed.”

“Good, good. That’s very good. I tried to avoid the more melancholy iconography, but I know how much Soo Lin affected you, and I wanted her represented in some way.”

“Short of a millennium-old teapot, I think you did brilliantly.  The stocking is a nice touch, too, thank you.”

“Mummy’s idea, of course, but I endorsed it. And selected that one in particular. Nutcrackers. Christmas soldiers.” He cleared his throat, aiming for nonchalance but landing closer to a nervous cough.

Amid the holiday standard glass orbs and fairy lights, John found more and more miniaturised representations of their time together. A toy London cab nestled in the needles near small replica of a human skull and ( _oh dear_ ) a real packet of cigarettes. John instinctively reached to determine the contents, and heard Sherlock chuckle behind him, nearer now than he had been the minute before.

“It’s Christmas, John, I wouldn’t do that to you.”

John smiled, the most genuine smile Sherlock had seen from him since the last time they’d solved a murder shoulder to shoulder.

“I had to check.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

John began to hum, a holiday tune Sherlock knew he should recognise. They were standing next to one another now, and Sherlock pointed out the remaining ornaments John had missed. A purple “I <3 Florida” keychain reminiscent of Mrs. Hudson ( _better that than herbal soothers_ , John thought) hung near an Underground logo for the Baker Street Tube stop.

There was a large paw print hanging hard by a small white rabbit. “Glows in the dark, took forever to find that one,” Sherlock said.  Buckingham Palace was represented, as were the Crown jewels, in the form of a small St. Edward’s Crown. The latter was too small to be threatening, echoes of Moriarty’s grand theft notwithstanding.

Some of their anatomical detours were captured as well – a fake blonde moustache dangled above a hopefully-fake eyeball, ganglia-and-all.  Besides the black lotus, there was only one ornament that caused John’s brow to furrow. A miniature riding crop, the perfect progeny of the instrument John had last seen wielded by The Woman during the encounter in which she drugged Sherlock before her first escape. Sherlock saw the shift in John’s face and the stiffening of his frame. Following the line of John’s sight, he started. “No, John! Not that one! Don’t you recall what I was doing in Bart’s just before we met?”

A memory returned to John as out of the distant past. Sherlock, standing in the lab at Bart’s, walking towards the door as he said, “I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.” John had asked him later, soon after moving into 221B, what the hell he had been on about, and Sherlock had told him, but he told the tale backwards, starting from the resultant exoneration of a murder suspect. John felt the familiar bracing for holiday tension turning once again into Christmas warmth. He turned to look up into Sherlock’s face, surprised to see concern clouding out self-assurance. Without thinking, John put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and squeezed. “Of course I remember. Thank you. For all of it. It’s tremendous.”

The concern melted away, replaced by a signal pride of authorship. “You’re most welcome, John. It was…fun, actually. Truly.”

The pair were still standing by the tree when Mr. Holmes entered the lounge, bearing a tray of mugs emanating a fragrance of cinnamon and cloves. “Too early for wassail, boys? ‘hope not, it’s top notch.”

There was a moment just before Mr. Holmes’ entrance that John didn’t notice until hours after it ended. A moment that, in any other circumstance, with any other companion, he would have recognised as a very specific kind of tension. The words “go get ‘im, tiger”, flashed unbidden through his thoughts and were gone before he could consciously register their presence. But something within him had shifted.

After the wassail and a few impossibly normal stories of Sherlockian childhood derring-do, courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, John returned to his room for a late morning nap. Even as he felt the drowse of food and alcohol take him over, he noticed a feeling of lightness, of contentment, so novel for the time of year. He allowed the pleasing hum of that contentment to carry him over the edge, and he had no bad dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carollers and hand-holding. 
> 
> [I thought this would be 2/2, but there's a bit more to do in a final Ch. 3.]

When John awoke from his nap just after midday, there was frost glazing the window and a light dusting of snow settling over the hedgerows surrounding Holmes cottage. With the return of consciousness came the memory the morning’s events, the shocking normalcy of it all, interlaced with the even more shocking sentimentality – including, most shockingly indeed, Sherlock’s own. No man who hoarded books and skulls and bat carcasses could be entirely without sentiment, John reminded himself, Sherlock’s protestations to the contrary aside, but the extent of his Christmas planning was only comprehensible if one acknowledged a rather remarkable capacity for empathy. _Sociopath my arse_ , John thought, as he eased himself back into trousers and brogues. It was both exhilarating and uncomfortable to be the focus of that empathy, but curiosity won out as John considered what the remainder of the day might hold. He recalled his mocking remark about elves and angelic choirs and winced inwardly while wondering, quite rightly he felt, whether Sherlock’s dismissal of magical creatures was misdirection more than bah humbug. _What would come next?_

He didn’t have long to wait. With the sun trapped behind snow clouds, the late December light was already softly falling, so John saw the glow of lantern light several seconds before he heard the lilt of sopranos outlined by tenor harmonies. For the briefest moment, he imagined wood sprites in kerchiefs, small elven spirits levitating fairy lights down the country lane. Then he heard the singing.

Not singing, _carolling_. Carollers on Christmas Eve!  It was so absurdly festive that John laughed aloud, a deep _HA_ that travelled through the en suite and into Sherlock’s room, eliciting an unseen, enormous Cheshire cat grin. 

What he called out, though, was a far more composed, “What is it John?” as he walked through into the neighbouring bedroom. He knew the answer, of course he did. He had requested that Holmes cottage be placed on the carollers’ route, but John needn’t know that. He fell in behind the smiling John Watson and looked over his shoulder at the approaching chorus in period dress. “Ah, Christmas carollers, how very parochial. Shall we go and give them an audience?”

Moved by the moment and a giddiness that felt like the return of a very old friend, John again acted without thinking. He grabbed Sherlock’s hand and pulled him towards the stair, the way he might have done had they both been eight-year-olds and not grown men of a certain age. It wasn’t until they were before the front door of the cottage, joined by Sherlock’s parents, that John came to himself long enough to let go. He felt his blush this time, saw it reflected in the kind, encouraging smile of Mrs. Holmes, and panicked for exactly the two seconds it took Mr. Holmes to open the front door and admit both a fulsome tide of Christmas music and a cooling gust of December chill.

 _How did he know I absolutely adore Christmas carols?_    _Was it because I was humming this morning? Damn him._

After several songs and much clapping and thank-you’ing, the choral party moved on and the cottage party returned to the sitting room for more wassail. As expected, Mycroft joined them for supper, a simple repast meant to prime their appetites for tomorrow’s feast. There were, however, mince pies from Mrs. Holmes’ oven, which pushed the tally for holiday clichés quite beyond any mark John could have predicted when they departed London.

John noted that Mycroft had the self-satisfied but still somewhat preoccupied air of a cat that ate the canary but is still eyeing the cream. He thought better of sharing his observation, however. _No good can come of challenging Mycroft on what is literally his home turf_ , he thought. _I’ll ask Sherlock later_.

During supper, Mummy and Father and John pieced together the carollers’ repertoire as Mycroft politely pretended interest, and Sherlock fiddled with the crumbs from his tea. After coffee and washing up, and a notable absence of fraternal sniping, there was an uncomfortable shuffle as the Holmes senior, along with Mycroft, readied themselves for attendance at Christmas Eve services. John was temporarily torn; he felt the pull of tradition, of comporting with a host’s priorities, of childhood Christmas vespers in which a boy could feel the power of the sublime alongside the urgent anti-establishment tendencies of youth. He looked questioningly at Sherlock as his hosts gathered coats and scarves, and immediately noted the discomfort radiating from the man. After the revelations of the past 36 hours, he wasn’t surprised that Sherlock’s typical anti-religion invective was on mute, but he saw uncertainty in every muscle, as if Sherlock were internally hopping from one foot to the next in fretful anticipation. John quickly turned his back on the exiting three-quarters of the Holmes family and shined his most reassuring smile. “Let’s get that fire going again, shall we?”

The effect was instant and gratifying. Sherlock whooshed from the foyer into the sitting room and bent to the task of stoking the dying embers and replenishing the wood. John wished Mycroft and his parents a pleasant evening and turned to follow Sherlock into the lounge, still smiling broadly. “Any sherry about?” he asked, and Sherlock pointed absently toward a sideboard on the far wall while absorbed in his work. John found glasses and a bottle, and returned with them to the hearth, where Sherlock’s work was almost complete. Setting the bottle and glasses down on the coffee table for a moment, he considered the opposed wing chairs many feet from the fireplace, but intuitively rejected them as too far from the fire’s warmth. That same intuition told him that Sherlock was, at this point, no longer doing anything constructive with the fire and was merely poking about at the blaze to look busy. He gently took the fire poker and eased it into the stand to the left of the mantelpiece, pretending not to notice the nervous movements in Sherlock’s pre-emptively freed hand. That done, he picked up the bottle of sherry, filled both glasses, and placed one of them in Sherlock’s empty grip. Only after they had each taken a fortifying sip did he look up at the man he thought he knew, a man he realized, thrillingly, he may barely know at all.

“Sherlock.” 

“Hmm.”

“Sherlock, look at me.”

They were standing by the mantle. In contrast to the year before, there was no premeditation in John’s words or movements, just the natural extension of his hand to grasp Sherlock’s upper arm, just the genuine expression of gratitude in the smiling “thank you” he whispered as he gripped the bicep cording through fine silk and wool. Had he noticed before how the years had whittled that arm down to its essentials of muscle and tendon? _Why am I noticing this now?_

“What for?” was what Sherlock said, but it was a placeholder for “what are you thinking?” He was watching John’s face avidly, and for the third time in 36 hours, John blushed – fully cognizant of his flush and what it implied – with the futile awareness that he was visibly giving something away.

“You know”, John said, and what a world was contained in those two words.

He released his grip on Sherlock’s arm, took another sip of sherry, and turned toward the fire. He crouched before the hearth, setting his glass next to the stockings before picking up the new one, decorated with his name and small images of wooden nutcrackers. _Christmas soldiers_ , Sherlock had said. Something was happening. _What was happening?_

There had been three people in John’s life that had caused his theoretical bisexuality to praxis its way into something more imperative. The first was a Uni mate who was similarly theoretical right up until his mouth surrounded John’s cock. He had gone on to eschew sex with women entirely, for which John couldn’t help but take some credit. While John’s cock had very much appreciated the rougher handling of his friend’s touch, after their affair ended he nonetheless had tended almost exclusively to pursue physical intimacy with women, though from time-to-time he developed emotional, even romantic connections regardless of the gender of his love interest.

Sholto had been the very personification of the defect John had heard his women friends grumblingly call “emotional unavailability”, but that hadn’t mattered much until the incident with the rooks. After that disaster, the Major had shut down their physical connection as well as their tentative emotional one. And then there had been pre-lapsarian Sherlock, the shining sarcastic bastard who confounded flirtation from Day 1 and made Sholto look positively clingy. John had been moved…oh had he ever been moved. But he was not a man who waited around. John took no for an answer and “married to my work” all but literally. He shuttered whatever had been moved, and he moved the fuck on. Even so, there had been times…times when Sherlock would flounce around the flat in a dressing gown, or become lost in his violin, or do something utterly brilliant and wild, and John remembered how his heart, and sometimes other bits, would leap.

Even those small moments of desire had evaporated completely in the wake of The Fall. It wasn’t acceptable to be attracted to a dead man, and their last conversation had been so grossly unsentimental that John could hardly pine for a rapport than he feared he may have manufactured himself. True, he had missed the man. He had wanted him to not be dead, as much to assuage his own guilt as anything, but any hint of desire had vanished utterly when he believed Sherlock to be a corpse.

Then he came back. The bastard came back as if he could press Play on a world he has merely Paused for his own convenience. It had been maddening. John’s anger at Mary’s deception had been a complex and forked thing, exactly _because_ it was directed partly at Sherlock and his voluntary absence. Even when he understood how Sherlock’s disappearance had protected him, John still suspected that Mary had targeted him – or at least found him an easy mark – exactly because Sherlock was gone. That unprovable hypothesis had deeply affected the quality and temperature of John’s reception of his erstwhile flatmate and friend upon the return.

He was glad Sherlock was alive, of course he was. In almost every way that mattered, he trusted him completely. Under literal or metaphorical fire, he would trust him with his life. A soldier’s trust. If he were ever in exigent circumstances of a personal nature, he believed Sherlock would not let him go under, would withhold judgment while extending a safety net. A friend’s trust. But he would never be so daft as to grant to Sherlock any responsibility for his emotional wellbeing. That way lay madness.

And yet…who was this man who was swapping jumpers and hanging ornaments and generally being a goddamn _delight_? And why were John’s trousers reacting as if Sherlock was a potential romantic interest and not the most infuriating git this side of the Channel? And what was he doing with his hand?

While John had been ruminating, Sherlock had eased his way down before the hearth, maintaining a similar posture to John’s, but instead of thumbing at the fabric of a stocking while staring absently into the flames, Sherlock had been keenly observing John’s face and deducing the course of his thoughts. He got it almost entirely wrong – he had sensed the reverie was primarily about Mary and the fake baby and all the lost future family Christmases – but he correctly intuited two things: one, that this was the right time to reach for John’s hand, and two, that John would not know what the hell to do once he did so.

What John did _not_ do was push Sherlock away. As they crouched there before the fire, awkward but unwilling to make any large movements, Sherlock nervously ran his thumb along the edge of John’s right hand. There was purpose in it, but a question too. After three agonizing seconds of nothing, the answering pressure came in the form of John’s thumb drawing mirroring circles on Sherlock’s hand.

The minutes drew on, and the circles continued. Neither of them were looking at their joined hands. Neither of them were breathing or speaking. John was the first to take another sip of sherry, and Sherlock followed, each of them going through the motions of drinking as if their other hands were not enacting the most important event in the history of human interaction at that very moment.

It was Mycroft that callously interrupted them before either man drummed up the courage to speak or go beyond the same minute tactile investigations. Of course it was Mycroft. Walking into the sitting room looking for the sherry, like a bull in a china shop.

 _Damn him_ , thought John.

 _Damn him_ , thought Sherlock.

 _Damn me_ , thought Mycroft.

*                *                *

After Mycroft’s entrance, John and Sherlock parted as if embers had shot from the fire onto their respective trousers. None of the three men had any clue what they or the others had mumbled, but Sherlock was fastest and like a frightened bird he caromed into the doorframe and up the stairs in the time it took John to become upright and set down his sherry glass.

“Goodnight, John,” Mycroft spoke softly, having regained his composure and now looking like the cat who had successfully consumed both the canary and the cream.

“Yeah, same,” John managed, and walked slowly toward the stair in order to reduce to nil the chance that he would run into Sherlock en route to his room.

*                *                *

_Did that just happen? What just happened? What will happen now? Get through the morning. You didn’t push him away. You don’t want to push him away. You’ll Never. Push. Him. Away._

_Did that just happen? Yes, you idiot, of course it did. What will happen now? Just proceed with the plan. Get through the morning. God that was stupid. Wait was that stupid. He didn’t push you away. He didn’t push you away. He Did Not. Push. You. Away._

Mycroft eased into a wing chair and reflected on what he had just witnessed. _Finally. Happy Christmas to me too. Excellent sherry, most excellent._

*                *                *

The first time John had held anyone’s hand who was not related to him, it happened at a primary school birthday party and the momentary elation of soft fingertips gracing his own had been replaced within hours by the abject terror, the certain knowledge, that those fingertips were attached to Frances Jones, a person whom he must see again, at school, the following Monday. His attempt to feign illness had been poorly conceived and futile. He had survived the subsequent encounter by pretending the young lady did not exist.

He did not think that would work with Sherlock.  He didn’t want it to. But he didn’t know how to acknowledge how good it had felt, their hands together, so instead, as he dressed on Christmas morning, he resolved to act as close to normal as was possible, and to leave the rest to Sherlock. This was his home, his holiday planning, and it had been his bloody hand that had made the first move. He could bloody well finish what he started. _But what if he didn’t?_ He hadn’t exactly lingered after Mycroft’s entrance. Rather, he could hardly have moved more quickly away. Sod that, we’ll cross that Rubicon when we get to it.

John returned to the Holmes’ kitchen to the sight of the senior-most members of the family putting the finishing touches on a lighter meal of toast, jam, and rashers, while Sherlock made the tea. He had seen before the look of feigned nonchalance that Sherlock bore, and knew it was a veneer over something much more turbulent. _Good_ , he thought. “Good morning”, he said, and the family looked up and greeted him – Mr. and Mrs. Holmes with genuine hostful grace, and Mycroft with smirking acknowledgement. Sherlock almost ignored him completely. _Ah, so now_ I’m _the Frannie Jones here. Lovely._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that the next/last chapter will go up before Jan. 7, probably much sooner. 
> 
> Please subscribe to this and me for updates on all of the above.
> 
> Comments and criticism welcome and appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very overdue final chapter; apologies! I decided to tee up a sequel; more on that below.

After breakfast, the party once again adjourned to the sitting room, where the stockings were displayed in lumpy array, and the presents under the tree became the focus of familial attention. John had assumed he would retreat to the periphery while the Holmes went through their holiday motions, so he was surprised when Mrs. Holmes said, “here you go, John, one from your sister, one from Dad and me, and one from Sherlock.”

Shock gave way to the autonomic response of “thank you, ma’am” and an equally reflex questioning glance at Sherlock, who continued his apparent holiday tradition of looking everywhere about the room except for the vicinity of John Watson. Mycroft bore the same look of satisfaction he’d borne since he was a blur in John’s exiting periphery the prior evening. 

 _Harry. How the hell did he manage—oh hell, how can I even ask that anymore?_   John saw that, unlike the Watson SOP of manic every-soul-for-themselves package ripping, the Holmes opened gifts individually in order of seniority. John, as the only invited guest, was considered most senior, and was expected to open his three presents while under the combined gaze of his hosts, which ranged from genuine affection (Mr. and Mrs. Holmes), feigned curiosity (Mycroft, pretending he had not deduced the contents of each parcel), and couldn’t-care-less-but-get-on-with-it impatience (Sherlock, emoting who the hell knew what).

Out of gratitude, he began with the Holmes’ gift. A cd of religious carols from the local choral society, many of the members of which had graced the cottage door on Christmas Eve. John’s smile was broad and appreciative. “What a wonderful surprise, thank you! I look forward to torturing Sherlock with this back at Baker Street.” Sherlock harrumphed, the first indication he was conscious of John’s presence since acknowledging John’s passing of the jam earlier that morning.

“Oh.” Carried along by the warmth of the Holmes’ gift and Sherlock’s grudging recognition, John had somewhat unconsciously unwrapped the gift from Harry. It was an old photograph in a worn, unfashionable frame. Clearly it had spent time in the sun, presumably in Harry’s cramped flat near the sole sitting room window. John remembered the photo vaguely, unclear if the memory was real or manufactured by suggestion. It featured a smiling John, no more than five years old, flush with triumph in the gift arms race, holding up a fistful of green army men in one chubby hand and a fire engine in the other. Harry stood next to him before the family Christmas tree, looking at his victor’s posture with the combination of condescension and adoration that only a big sister could manage. Her hand loosely held a soon-to-be-neglected Barbie, the last time their parents had attempted to woo her with girlish toys. The doll didn’t matter, though, the photo made that clear. She was a moment away from dropping it and crushing her baby brother in a sneak attack hug. As she’d always done when there was a surplus of energy and nothing to stop her.

The room was quiet; John felt the cone of silence expand around him to hush everything but the workings of the kitchen clock, which sounded petulant in the stillness-shortened distance. The parental Holmes were respectful but curious. Mycroft had raised a mug of the ever-present wassail almost conspicuously, his decorous sip the only movement in the sitting room. Sherlock appeared to be… _was he? yes, he was_ …holding his breath. John cleared his throat and levelled out a brief, bright anecdote. He didn’t say it was the last best Christmas he could remember, but that might have been true. He didn’t say thank you; the card had read “From Harry”.  But the look he beamed at Sherlock was unmistakeable.

He had been a different kind of grateful when Sherlock had extricated him from a jacket of Semtex, ages ago. He had been a peculiar kind of beholden to Sherlock when the latter had pierced Magnusson’s skull with a small calibre bullet. He had been a quiet kind of indebted when Sherlock had said “sheets or blanket”. And now he was feeling a new but not entirely unfamiliar kind of appreciation crowd his ribs and expand outward, threatening to take him over entire. It felt nice. It felt goddamn brilliant, god but it _did_. _Down, boy. Not while his bloody parents are smiling beatifically._

He was still shaking himself out of whatever limbic limbo he’d fallen into when he heard Sherlock clear his throat. John looked down at the photo in his lap, sitting atop the third wrapped gift, this one marked simply, “JW from SH”.

It was a scarf.

Just a scarf, and that was fine ( _it’s all fine_ ), but what was on the tag? Sherlock’s scrawl on a small note, pinned to the label: “More later”. A second after John felt his eyebrows raise, he regretted it. Not because Sherlock had seen it – let him, they’d reconnoitre soon enough and whatever was simmering would rise or fall – but because it had had the most horrifying effect on Mycroft’s expression. He was _smiling_. Apples to ashes, it was actually genuine. Moreover it was _mortifying_.

“Ta, Sherlock, lovely thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The remainder of the family’s unwrapping was uneventful, but for the constant drum of Sherlock’s note inside John’s skull. The stockings contained bog-standard fare, tangerines and walnuts and peppermint sticks, all appreciated but John’s smile was an automatic veneer over the “more later more later more later” that had evolved from a staccato rhythm into three part harmonies as the morning drew on. It was clear to the initiated eye that Sherlock had been fighting his own battle on the other side of the sitting room. The domesticity and extended sitting were having predictable effects, but he was held to his chair by both loyalty to his parents and a fascination with John’s distracted face.  

Finally, it was over. They were free to nap or walk, and John decided to be bold. “How about a turn about the village, Sherlock? Surely there are some crows you can deduce.”

“A murder. Hilarious, John.”

“Ta again, thanks very much. Well?”

The bad joke had made it easier for him to appear nonchalant, and he did, almost. Sherlock eased out of his chair and swept past John to gather their coats from the front hall, acquiescing without comment. Mycroft decided to smile again, _damn him_. 

They were half way to the village green, now dusted in frost, when John decided to cross the Rubicon himself. He wasn’t Frannie Jones, and Sherlock wasn’t getting off the hook that easily. “Sherlock, I wanted to ask—”

\--but the words took a swan dive from his mouth, with no rescue buoy following, when he turned and saw the graven form of Sherlock’s face. “Save your words, John, there’s no point. I’m meant to apologise and I shall. Last night was the result of too much wassail and not enough mental stimulation. I made you uncomfortable and I regret it. Can we be done with it?”

“Now see here, Sherlock,” John started, with the same tone he reserved for kitchen experiments gone awry and etiquette lessons, “you have interrupted **_and_** gotten the entirely wrong end of it. I wasn’t going to ask you to apologise, I was going to ask you….” And here he paused, realizing a little belatedly that Sherlock’s regret may have been genuine, and his hand, as it were, misplaced. But one sideways look at Sherlock, who was holding his breath again as if it might make the conversation go more quickly, or himself disappear entirely, told him he had been right last night and this morning. This wasn’t Sherlock embarrassed by his inebriation, this was Sherlock embarrassed by his sentiment. Hallelujah and alert the papers!

John stopped at a nearby fence post, and signalled Sherlock to halt as well. His face bore an incipient laugh, good-natured and kind, and John was surprised to find that he felt exactly so. Not frightened or squeamish. Just a fellow on a walk with his…with his…well, they’d come to that later. First things first: “…I was going to ask you why you’d waited so long.”

If he thought the inherent admission in the question would be enough to unhinge Sherlock’s locked jawline, or soften his hardened brow, John was disappointed. If he wanted to see Sherlock colour, he’d struck his target in the bull’s eye. Sherlock looked as consternated as before, but now he was flushed from neck to temple, and if John didn’t know the reason he would have assumed a suspect had just successfully fled jurisdiction or Anderson had just tramped through footprint evidence at a crime scene.

“Jesus Sherlock, unclench! I just flirted with you for chrissakes. Last night you held my bloody hand. These are not offenses against the Crown!”

Sherlock decided his best move was to put distance between himself and the cause of his distress, so he continued walking down the lane toward the green, leaving John no option but to chase after him at a speed walk. Partly from instinct and partly from cheek, when he regained Sherlock’s side he grabbed the taller man’s hand and pressed it decisively without letting go. “There. We’re even. And no Mycroft this time to run from.”

Sherlock stopped again, this time looking intently at their joined hands. “You don’t mean this. Why are you winding me up?”

John squeezed again. “‘m not. Try me.” Sherlock moved as if to walk away, but John held his hand fast and kept pace. “We can walk all the way to the village and back like this, I don’t mind.” _I’ve said that before, my hand on his knee. God what fools these mortals be._ He felt Sherlock relax from his fingertips upward, and he squeezed again in invitation. “Might get a few looks, but would do the neighbours good, most like.”

“It’s alright, John. I believe you. You can let go now.” John did, but not before sweeping his thumb over Sherlock’s, in imitation of the previous night’s gesture.

“We will talk about this back at Baker Street, Sherlock. For now, though, just know that I’m glad. And it’s a lovely scarf.”

Sherlock had turned them back towards the cottage, and he continued for a few paces before replying. “When I said, ‘more later’, I didn’t mean hand holding. That is, I didn’t mean a continuation of last night. But I did mean to give you something else. Another present, I mean.” The flustered search for words was most unlike Sherlock, and John felt his chest swell with mischievous pride that he had thrown the man off even this much. While he mused on that, Sherlock reached into the pocket of the Belstaff and brought out a small moleskine of the sort he favoured, and handed it to John.

“My journal. From when I was away. It’s encrypted, but I’ll make sure you have what you need to decode it. If you want. Mycroft had to retrieve it from the Serbian secret service. I didn’t think anyone should have it but me. Or you. You’ll…I suspect you’ll see why once you crack it.”

John turned the notebook over in his hands. It was battered and creased but full of writing, with the occasional stain of tea or more organic substances. And that was all he could tell. The first page bore the following inscription:

_tmoz if xsbnsic rfhd_  
 _i iu uog sfhw vt z krn  
_ _enqe ahnb a fufh_

Subsequent pages were equally illegible, and John shuddered at the knowledge that this level of encryption had been necessary during Sherlock’s activities during his time away. The phrase “Serbian secret service” wasn’t much comfort either.

“Alright, Sherlock. Thank you. I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t mention it. Let’s get back. Mycroft’s likely to have pulled something from all that smiling, and I do like to see him in physical pain. Christmas dinner soon too. Let’s see how many of the crackers I can deduce, shall we?”

And with that, they were back to normal, John and Sherlock against some corner of the rest of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to read Sherlock's journal (and help John crack it), I invite you to subscribe to me and/or watch this space for the sequel, Gray's Cipher, coming soon to an ao3 near you. 
> 
> thanks for reading!


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